DV

No matter what you think about Fred, or whoever, the person behind the writing there is an understanding that needs to be understood.

This man, as well as his siblings, was subject to some of the most extreme repetitive family violence known within Australian shores. This man is a victim. A victim whose life has been and continues to be a hell of isolation, a hell caused by people who should have been significantly better.

First, 15 years of terrible abuse is not 15 years at all. It is currently 44 years, 44 years today. Today, Fred’s birthday, the first one in five he has received a birthday message from a loved one, first one five years where anybody has recognised it at all. This is isolation.

Isolation, confusion, pain, suffering, suicidal tendencies, difficulty in coping, many other words, are symptoms of domestic violence (DV) as a starting point. Most of our trauma and therefore actions of coping with that trauma stem from the family. All of those symptoms are heavily present in this story.

Fred absolutely loves his parents, absolutely despises them too, both of them, for bringing him into the world, into this existence, for not taking the time to look in the mirror and be better examples of the world in which they are about to influence. Were being a parent selfless at all, this type of work would be dominating all parental aspirants lives, but it is not.

In fact, none of you, them have even taken a moment to be better yous’. Parenting is not selfless, not in this day and age, the evidence is all in your own examples.